The Truth About the Gamer Stereotype

(Disclosure: This post does not nec­es­sar­ly re­flect the views or opin­ions of any­one on SuperNerdLand staff. Content Manager and staff fol­low the afore­men­tioned ac­count on Twitter & oc­ca­sion­al­ly talks with them on Twitter.)

I think a lot of the ten­sion around women in gam­ing comes from a fun­da­men­tal mis­un­der­stand­ing of who gamers are. It’s clas­sic stereo­typ­ing.

Games are the most ac­ces­si­ble form of en­ter­tain­ment and so­cial in­ter­ac­tion for most peo­ple. And that ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty is so im­por­tant to our di­ver­si­ty. If you are dis­ad­van­taged, dis­abled, sick, iso­lat­ed, work­ing crazy hours, un­em­ployed, liv­ing in a bad place, etc… games are there for you. They’re the most ubiq­ui­tous form of in­ter­ac­tive en­ter­tain­ment.

It’s easy to buy into the con­cept of cap‐on‐backwards game­bros not let­ting girls into their se­cret club­house, but take a look at who you game with. I know gamers who are dis­abled and home­bound. I’ve known dy­ing gamers. I know gamers who can’t go out­side with­out fear for their lives. Games are so im­por­tant for so many peo­ple. It’s how they con­nect with oth­er peo­ple. It’s how they find re­lief from the hard things in life.

That’s why it boils my blood when gamers are called misog­y­n­erds, game­bros, or what­ev­er. They’re shit­ting on some re­al­ly vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple. Some peo­ple have been dealt a re­al­ly tough hand in life. And, you know, the stereo­type that peo­ple love to at­tack is ba­si­cal­ly peo­ple on the autism spec­trum. Of which, many autis­tic peo­ple are into gam­ing, but not ex­act­ly known for their so­cial graces.

People in­volved with #GamerGate re­al­ly don’t like la­bels. They’d rather be judged by their words and ac­tions. If you break them down, they can be a col­lec­tion of la­bels, though. All the big buzz­word you see to­day: mar­gin­al­ized, trans, woman, gay, dis­abled, im­pov­er­ished, sur­vivor, vic­tim, ill, etc. are all found in #GamerGate.

They aren’t just those things and many don’t fit any of that cri­te­ria. Also, many de­test the idea of be­ing seen pri­mar­i­ly as a set of la­bels, so they tend to not ad­ver­tise these things. Still, the point is that there is a lot of di­ver­si­ty out there.

It’s a lot hard­er to write off a bunch of nerds as a “hate group” when you ac­tu­al­ly see the di­ver­si­ty and the ac­cep­tance of it with­in the com­mu­ni­ty. I wish peo­ple would take the time to con­sid­er that, be­fore as­sum­ing the worst of peo­ple.

My name is Michael Campbell. I am a bud­ding writer, pro­duc­er, and the content‐manager for off‐site opin­ion pieces. I fo­cus on Early Access Game Reviews, Traditional Games Media (Primarily Pen & Paper Role‐playing Games), Steam Games, Origin, and Indie Titles. My in­ter­ests in­clude draw­ing re­al­ly ter­ri­bly, run­ning far too many RPG games a week and hor­ri­fy­ing my co‐workers and friends. I also get re­al­ly an­gry on Twitter at in­jus­tice. I am also like­ly go­ing to be­come a fix­ture in the ed­i­to­r­i­al sec­tion of this site, due to the above anger. You can reach me at M.Campbell@supernerdland.com if you have ques­tions or com­ments; As well, you can reach me @EvilBobDALMYT on Twitter to see some of that anger in mo­tion.